Excerpt- From Here On

Empty

"He should come to any minute now."

The unfamiliar voice drifts into the first moments of his consciousness, punctuated by a shuffle of footsteps. It's followed immediately with the sinking realization that the comforting snare of Rashōmon is gone from his skin, as if the entire ground has given out beneath him. Something shifts at his throat and clicks tightly, snapping him to attention.

The setting is oddly familiar. Then again, he isn't new to the staples of a room designed solely to break its inhabitants. Bare stone walls, no windows, a single thick metal door that sealed completely against the seams. The shackles at his wrists and ankles kept close together, behind his back and likely connected to the floor, further restricting him. He knelt in front of a large basin, roughly the same material as the rest of his surroundings, and a heavy metal collar had been clipped around him, pulling him forward so he was forced to stare into the bottom of the empty vessel if he did not purposefully tilt his head back. At the center was end of his lead, chained to another loop embedded in the concrete. His neck scraped along the sharp edge as he breathed. The cold of the room seeps into him from all sides, painfully aware of how vulnerable he is stripped bare and without his ability. But not powerless.

A figure stepped back into view from out of his peripheral, barely visible in the darkness of the room as his eyes adjust. They lit a cigarette, flicking the lighter on and off for a few moments before leaning down to bring its lit flame close to Akutagawa. It cast odd shadows along the figure's face but gave enough to see by, even as it burned spots into his vision. His captor took a long drag off the cigarette, blowing smoke into Akutagawa's eyes. He stifled a cough, keeping his expression blank.

"They say the Port Mafia's Hellhound can smell his victims across the city. So? Do you know who I am?"

He briefly attempts to match the unremarkable features to anything of note and finds any recognition failing.

"Because I know you, Ryuunosuke Akutagawa. How else do you think I found you so easily?"

"I don't hide. Do you expect me to cower for someone who can see what's in front of his face?"

The man brought his fist against Akutagawa's nose with a crack, a gush of blood following the sound and the vibrating ache it left in his face.

"I expect you to pay for the foul shit you've done."

An extensive list to be sure. So this was a personal matter.

"That ragged coat of yours should make a fine enough ransom note."

He clicked the lighter off, leaving only the glow of his cigarette to see by as he took another drag.

"But if they don't get the hint," he took the cigarette from his mouth and put it out on Akutagawa's cheek before letting it drop into the basin. "We can always take a pound of flesh to get the message across more clearly."

He turned a handle on the faucet at the head of the concrete tub, filling the silence with the rush of water.

"Until then, I'll let you get comfortable with your new place in the world."

Several pairs of shoes clicked against the floor in the darkness, momentarily illuminated by the blinding halo when the door opened making multiple bodies appear as one fused monstrosity. The door shut with a series of clicks. And then it was just the dark, the cold, the sound of water gurgling, and the dull ache in his bones. The basin had filled and spilled over hours ago. The endless ice water ran down the sides and coated the floor around him, prevented from further flooding only by the drain in the center of the room he could hear swallowing in the dark. Any attempt to rest from his required posture forced his face below water. His muscles had ached, then burned, then gone numb in the time since. Now any slight movement sent waves of painful pins and needles through his entire body, helped none by the shake that had set in as the temperature seemingly continued to drop. The room was dry with cold, chapping his lips until they cracked and bled. Taking in any air was like drinking shards of glass, burning and clawing its way through his chest and throat with the low, endless vent of smoke into the sealed room. Bent the way he needed to so as not to swallow water made every cough racked from him feel like suffocating and he more than a dozen times caved to the comfort of gravity at the price of all the more obstacles between him and a full breath. He couldn't have slept even if he wished to, the room fitted with speakers that played an alternating drone of extreme high and low pitches, each a different drill in his skull. Worse was when these were interrupted by the scream of sirens for minutes if not hours on end, echoing off the walls until it made him delirious. Often, when the siren ended he would be sent back to brief silence, only so long as to grant him a false hope before the door opened and brought with it the new curse of light so bright it burned and made him flinch at the impossibility of closing his eyes tight enough to filter it.

There were at least five of them, though he considered it possible there were more he didn't see, or that there were less and he'd mistaken them for different people in his scattered state.

A woman in heels had sobbed in his place while taking a bat to his joints, being ushered out of the room by one of her accomplices after the force had split open the skin on one of his knees. Her accomplice had continued without her, seemingly egged on by his lack of reaction. He asked which finger Akutagawa would miss the most if cut off and when he didn't receive an answer he snapped three of them on his left hand, pleased at the involuntary howl it tore out of his victim. He'd left boot prints on Akutagawa's spine and nearly crushed his thigh bone before being called away, threatening that next time he would slice the tendons in his legs and take his skin with it.

One didn't speak, walking across the room and only bringing with them a miniscule flashlight that cast Akutagawa's shadow across the water as they worked behind him. They worked silently, aside from the gentle tap of glass against itself. They twisted his arm nearly out of its socket to position it where they desired, first inspecting his newly broken fingers by pulling at the nails as if equipped they would have torn them from their roots before regaining focus and injecting a series of needles into him carelessly, repeatedly bursting the vein until his inner elbow turned purple and swelled like a spider bite. The venomous medication seared beneath his skin, bringing with it a fever and dizziness that nearly made him vomit.

Another pair had taken turns, mocking the scarred slashes and bullet wounds from his life by saying they would pale in comparison. One had taken to beating him with a branding iron, leaving it to sizzle against the soft divet of flesh where shoulder met throat until his skin was black under it. All the while the other had taken to testing each of his limbs in turn with a pair of alligator clips to see which caused the most pain when she ran a current through him. They'd circled like a dueling set of vultures, slicing into him with a box cutter just deep enough to bleed over and over until the skin on one shoulder blade was nearly gone, festering into an ugly open sore.

Again, the door opened and Akutagawa could tell by the pace of the steps it was the man who smoked.

"Turn the lights on." he commanded one of the others outside before the barrier was back in place.

A now-familiar loud click was followed by the flickering hum of the harsh lights above him, illuminating every detail of the insect in the microscope. His blood had mixed with the water, staining the floor a muddy red. The smoker held a gun loosely at his side.

"Beg for your life, if you want it. I will spare you if your pleas satisfy me."

"I do not cling to life sufficiently to fear death." Akutagawa recited, the sound and feel of the words a source of strength in and of itself. "Nothing you can do will be worse than the Port Mafia has already granted me. If you are going to kill me, you should have saved yourself the time and effort when you first had the chance to take it."

His captor grabbed the back of his skull, forcing his head into the tank of water with enough force that his jaw hit the side, teeth clacking together awkwardly and tearing into the inside of his cheek. He held, forcing Akutagawa to take in a mouthful of the blistering water and only letting him up for a meager release of air when he began choking. Every cough tinted the water under him a deeper red.

"Then maybe it's time we truly treat you like the Port Mafia would want. They certainly don't seem interested in getting back their command unit leader. I think they need a reminder. You've got the insider information, which do you think will catch their attention?"

He grabbed Akutagawa's chin, fingers digging into sallow cheeks.

"Should we gouge out an eye? Maybe both? Or cut out your tongue? Maybe it would do better to just take the whole fucking jaw. But then, why not just lop the head off. Save us the trouble, isn't that right?"

Akutagawa spit in his face, spraying him with the blood from his teeth. The man lifted his gun and fired, the bullet grazing Akutagawa's ear and leaving his hearing ringing violently.

"From here on, I want you to know that the only reason you're alive is because I allowed it."

He almost smiles to himself. It's nostalgic, in a twisted way. The first time in more than four years he's been told the same promise and it sounds more hollow than ever.